Advocacy Outcomes Are Not Self-Evident: The Quest for Outcome Identification

Abstract

Advocacy outcomes are not self-evident. Identifying advocacy outcomes is extremely difficult because they are often intangible, arising from (personal) interactions, and they are not always traceable. This challenges conventional evaluation methods, which is recognized in the advocacy evaluation literature. However, current evaluation methods claim to do justice to these complexities while in reality, these methods assume outcomes are identified logically following from actions. Based on empirical findings from a multisited ethnographic study of an advocacy evaluation, this article questions these underlying assumptions and empirically demonstrates how advocacy outcomes are socially and politically constructed, leaving room for interpretation.